Home-sharing inspires rural tourism

Digital platforms help smaller cities, villages to redefine Chinese hospitality for experience hunters

Last month, Beijing's Wang Jiahui, a software engineer, had what she described as "the most unforgettable accommodation experience", courtesy Airbnb, a key player in China's home-sharing market.

More than 100 million memorable experience-craving tourists such as Wang will share 6 million-plus homes across China by 2020, spawning a market whose annual revenues are expected to reach 50 billion yuan ($7.2 billion), according to a report from the State Information Center in Beijing.